click to enlargeThe Sunnyside Care Home in Crossgates is the first of 14 local care homes in Leeds and Harrogate with a telehealth remote telemonitoring program for residents. The pilot that started before Christmas is sponsored by NHS England’s West Yorkshire and Harrogate Acceleration Zone as part of their £8m initiative to improve urgent and emergency care.

The Yorkshire Evening Post profiles one of the residents, Mavis Robinson, who has motor neurone disease (MND). She was helped over the festive (US=holiday) season when her condition began to decline based on her vital signs monitoring which appears to be administered by staff. They were then able to obtain medication for pain before the situation escalated. Ms Robinson can discuss her health with the nurse based on the telehealth information. Telehealth information was also used to involve a family member in care for a patient nearing the end of their life. Unfortunately this Editor has been unable to determine what system is being used in the pilot. (Can one of our Readers enlighten us?–Ed.) Based on the closing quote from Sue Robins of NHS Leeds West CCG, it’s also an example of the NHS local strategy mentioned in The King’s Fund blog [TTA 17 Feb] for local areas to pilot and share the knowledge.

Our definitions

Telehealth and Telecare Aware posts pointers to a broad range of news items. Authors of those items often use terms 'telecare' and telehealth' in inventive and idiosyncratic ways. Telecare Aware's editors can generally live with that variation. However, when we use these terms we usually mean:

• Telecare: from simple personal alarms (AKA pendant/panic/medical/social alarms, PERS, and so on) through to smart homes that focus on alerts for risk including, for example: falls; smoke; changes in daily activity patterns and 'wandering'. Telecare may also be used to confirm that someone is safe and to prompt them to take medication. The alert generates an appropriate response to the situation allowing someone to live more independently and confidently in their own home for longer.

• Telehealth: as in remote vital signs monitoring. Vital signs of patients with long term conditions are measured daily by devices at home and the data sent to a monitoring centre for response by a nurse or doctor if they fall outside predetermined norms. Telehealth has been shown to replace routine trips for check-ups; to speed interventions when health deteriorates, and to reduce stress by educating patients about their condition.

Telecare Aware's editors concentrate on what we perceive to be significant events and technological and other developments in telecare and telehealth. We make no apology for being independent and opinionated or for trying to be interesting rather than comprehensive.